Wireless internet service provider Clearwire has some big 4G news: the company will be switching from WiMAX to LTE in the future. All the details aren’t clear yet and the announcement is far from official, but executives at the company have spoken out about the 4G switch. Higher ups at Clearwire, including both interim CEO John Stanton and COO Erik Prusch have said that a move to LTE is unavoidable.

No timeline has been set as of yet, but any change is heavily reliant on choices made by Sprint. The two companies work together on a number of levels in such a way that Clearwire is effectively a subsidiary of Sprint without actually being part of the company.

By using WiMAX 4G Clearwire (and, by extension, Sprint because they use Clearwire’s network) was able to get a very early jump on the 4G market but LTE brings notable advantages. With both AT&T and Verizon, the nation’s two largest carriers, have opted for LTE and Sprint/Clearwire would have been alone with WiMAX. Both technologies have their strengths, but LTE will have a wider user base in the US and to grow (as well as move on from their cash-strapped state) LTE adoption could be crucial. Currently WiMAX runs at about 6Mbps down and 1Mbps up, making it a good deal slower then even a very early implementation of LTE.

As of right now Sprint has no LTE plans announced. Clearwire has done network testing with LTE and was apparently very impressed with the results, but it’s not clear when they would make the switch. Their executives noted that a changeover would not occur until LTE technology has matured and they certainly wouldn’t be saying anything before Sprint’s own agenda has been set.